


learn by going

by Amber



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Body Calligraphy, Community: kinkme_merlin, Established Relationship, M/M, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:07:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/pseuds/Amber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin needs to study. Arthur... "helps".</p>
            </blockquote>





	learn by going

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Roethke's "The Waking".
> 
> Written for kinkme_merlin, to the prompt: Arthur/Merlin, Modern AU. Arthur offers to help Merlin revise for his exams. Grateful for the offer, Merlin writes his notes all over Arthur's gloriously naked body. Because the best way to memorise something is if it's written all over your boyfriend's ribs, right?

"No," Merlin says into the intercom. "No, no, no. Absolutely not."

"Come on, Merlin." Even through the static, Merlin can hear the whine in his boyfriend's voice, perfected over years and years of being a spoiled rich tosspot. "Let me upppp." He emphasizes his words by pressing the number for Merlin's flat again, tapping it in a way Merlin is certain is morse code for GIT. The buzzing sets Merlin's teeth on edge.

"Arthur, do you have any idea how important these exams are? I can't let you distract me."

"Look, I just want to see you. I can help you go over your work, quiz you or something. I find studying is always better with company."

Merlin bites his lip. Arthur's in a completely different degree and a year older besides, so it's not as though he'll really be any use, but Merlin does sort of miss him, not that he'd ever let the prat know. Or maybe Merlin just misses human contact— it's probably madness brought on by disconnecting his internet and hiding his phone for a week straight that has him pressing the button to let Arthur into the block of flats. "Fine," he huffs into the receiver, and in the tiny grainy, sepia video Arthur grins hugely and Merlin, even though there's no screen at the entrance and Arthur's already heading inside anyway, Merlin can't help but grin back.

"What the hell happened here?" is the first thing Arthur says when he swings open Merlin's front door, kicking off his shoes and staring around the living-room with wild eyes.

Merlin's already retreated back to the nest he's made on the couch, out of three blankets, six pillows, twenty books and half a rainforest's worth of print-outs speckled with pink and green highlighter. The area around is also sprinkled with take-away cartons time forgot, bowls with spoons and milk-rings and one lone cornflake on the side, and half-drunk mugs of coffee. It's a bit of a shambles. But Merlin says: "Nothing! Just busy! Study!" with a slightly mad grin.

"It's a good thing you let me up," Arthur says solemnly, as he starts picking up used crockery and carrying it gingerly to the kitchenette.

"What, so you could tidy my flat?" Merlin asks, rolling his eyes — he does that so often these days he's beginning to wonder if he should see an optometrist or something. "I'd have gotten around to it eventually, it's just I'm trying this thing where I don't have anyone over and focus completely on studying at the moment, so I didn't think it mattered."

Arthur grins over at him from the sink, unrepentant. "Is that why your phone's off?"

"_Yes_, Arthur, that is why my phone's off. And my internet. And the telly. Haven't you ever studied before?" Merlin flops back amid a fuzzy pink monstrosity his mum had sent him for chilly winter nights. "Don't answer that, if you say 'no' I might have to break up with you."

"You've done all right this year, haven't you?" Arthur gives an easy shrug, coming to lean over the back of the worn brown couch so he can brush a hand through Merlin's hair. "Why the big panic?"

Merlin's eyes close and he feels buckets of tension drain from him simply from the feel of Arthur's touch. "They're reviewing my scholarship," he says flatly. "If I don't ace every one of these exams— well." He grimaces, hating the sting of bitterness in his voice. "That's it for my education."

Arthur snorts, and Merlin's eyes fly open, ready to get defensive, but Arthur's giving him a rather fond look so he doesn't. "You know I'd never let that happen," says Arthur, climbing over the back of the sofa and tangling himself in Merlin's lap. "Besides, you're some kind of English Lit. genius, right?" Two broad hands come to rest, flat-palmed and soothing, on Merlin's chest. "You've hardly anything to worry about." He leans in. "There's no need to get quite so... _worked up_..."

At the last second Merlin, who has been lulled by Arthur's reassurance, realizes what is happening and pushes him back. "You!" he says, poking a finger into Arthur's chest. "Are a devious bastard! You came here just for sex, didn't you?"

Arthur bends forward again so his nose brushes over Merlin's ear, undeterred. "Not _just_ for sex," he says slyly. "But you do look as though you could use some, mm, stress-relief."

The feel of Arthur's hot breath in his ear forever has the power to send sparks of lust low in Merlin's belly, and he wiggles closer. Arthur grins, thinking he's won, when Merlin turns his head and kisses him, sucking his lower lip into his mouth and nipping it. "If you _actually_ help me study," Merlin says, pulling back with amusement dancing in his eyes, "Then I'll let you stay. But Arthur, if you get too distracting, I'm throwing you out on your arse."

"Is it my fault I'm distracting?" Arthur says, but he pulls back to the other end of the couch, heedless of Merlin's haphazardly stacked notebooks. Pages flutter to the ground and Arthur does look a little repentant then, sucking the lip Merlin just kissed wetly into his mouth and shooting over an apologetic look. Merlin sighs, grinds the palm of his hand into his eyes. It's like owning a bloody puppy.

"Just— try to behave yourself until I finish copying out these notes, all right?" Merlin sighs, picking his pen back up and re-opening the textbook.

For at least an hour, miracle of miracles, Arthur is quiet. He curls in the corner of the couch and plays with his phone, occasionally bumping their legs together or running a socked foot over Merlin's knee, but otherwise keeping his hands to himself. Then Merlin glances up absently with his pen in his mouth as he tries to recall something from a lecture and catches Arthur watching him intently. That makes him shiver— sends flickers of heat washing over his skin, painfully aware of how long it's been since they had any time alone together. After that, his concentration's shot.

Merlin's just about ready to throw his pen down and give up when Arthur breaks the silence. "When I study — and _yes_, Merlin, don't give me that look, I do, in fact, study — I tend to use a rewards system." Merlin stares at him blankly. "You know; if I finish a chapter of revision I'll allow myself a chocolate bar, or an episode of _Lost_, or something."

"Or something?" Merlin says, raising his eyebrows significantly.

"Now you're catching on," says Arthur, smirking a little as he traces his hand down his own chest. "You've been at this an awfully long time, after all; surely you deserve a break."

Privately, Merlin agrees. Out loud, he says: "You have a one-track mind, Arthur," tapping his felt-tipped pen against the paper and unable to tear his eyes away when Arthur's tongue flicks out over his lips. "This isn't helping me study," he adds, a little desperate.

"You could still take notes, if you'd like," Arthur says, running a hand over his stomach so that it rucks up his shirt suggestively, all hard muscle and a trail of hair leading down. The cadence of his voice deepens. "Write all over me. Show me what you've memorized." He undoes the button of his trousers with one hand, unzipping them slowly. Merlin's mouth is dry— pulse racing. "Let me give you a little incentive."

Arthur's eyelashes flutter gold on his cheeks, catching the late afternoon sunlight, as he slips one hand inside his own pants. Merlin can see the outline of it, moving as Arthur massages himself slowly, can feel himself getting hard just watching because he knows what that feels like: Arthur thick and hot in his hand, gasping his name—

"Sold," says Merlin, and snaps his textbook shut. Arthur reaches for him and he goes.

Merlin wants this to be quick and dirty so he lets his desperation seep into the kiss, slackening his jaw and sliding his tongue over Arthur's, and at first that works; he straddles Arthur's lap, hands frantically everywhere, grinds down onto his erection and gets a groan in return. Their teeth click together. It's wet and filthy and there's not enough room for both their knees— Merlin has to grip his shoulder to get the traction for thrusting, rolling their hips together.

Then Arthur tangles a hand in his hair and pulls him back, noses over his cheek, presses gentle kisses over his face. "Easy," he rumbles, laughing. "Easy now, darling. I've missed you too."

"You're such an egomaniac," Merlin says huffily, but ruins it by whimpering when Arthur's mouth trails over to his pulse-point, sucking hard. He can't help but make more breathless little noises when Arthur travels up to lick over the shell of his ear, nip the lobe, then press his tongue inside and fuck, but he's sensitive there, the wet heat of it jolting straight to his cock. One of Arthur's hands is stroking over his back in big soothing circles and Merlin could come undone, just from this.

"Tell me what you want," Arthur murmurs, breath tickling over Merlin's sensitive ear.

"You," says Merlin, before he can bite it back, and then pulls away and ducks his head, fingers going to work at Arthur's buttons. "With less clothes," he amends, glancing up through his fringe and catching Arthur's delighted smile. "Oh, shut up."

"I don't believe I said anything, Merlin," Arthur says, still brilliant in his happiness as he lets Merlin undress him.

After Arthur shrugs out of his shirt, Merlin traces his fingertips over the expanse of chest before him and looks up at his face. "Did you mean it when you said I could write on you?" he asks.

Arthur raises an eyebrow. "If you'd like."

"I—" Merlin tries to imagine what it would look like, all that pale skin his to mark, and feels the tips of his ears heat. "Yeah, I would."

Cupping the back of Merlin's neck, Arthur gives him one of the long, slow kisses Merlin loves, the kind that makes everything else drop away until he just feels safe. "Shall we move this to the bedroom?" Arthur asks against his mouth, and Merlin hums in acquiescence.

That requires standing, and Merlin takes the first opportunity he can to tug away Arthur's trousers and underwear; Arthur toes the lot off shamelessly and rubs himself over Merlin, dick dragging hot over jean-clad thigh. "Bedroom," Merlin reminds him, slapping his bare arse lightly and watching Arthur's pupils blow so huge there's barely a ring of blue left around them. Merlin barely has time to grab his felt-tip before Arthur's dragging him out of the room.

Merlin's bed is only a single, nothing like Arthur's sprawling four-poster, but it's soft and clean and Arthur sprawls back amid a tangle of unmade sheets and pulls Merlin with him. The light spills through the blinds in long slants over them both, deep yellow with the promise of twilight, but Merlin's room is filled with mirrors and trinkets and hanging glass baubles and they catch it and hold. There's easily enough room to see by as Merlin seats himself on Arthur's thighs, curves his spine and concentrates, the pen whispering over Arthur's skin.

"Does that— hurt?"

"Not really." Merlin presses a little harder than he has to on the curve of an _e_ and the metal nib scratches a swiftly fading line along with the letter. He looks up at Arthur, wordlessly repeating his question, and Arthur just shakes his head.

Arthur watches with wide, dazed eyes, his cock straining between them, and Merlin's eyes flicker between his face and the words he's recalling, spelling them carefully across Arthur's collarbone, bending to place a kiss to the divot with eyes and mouth closed. He likes having Arthur exposed and open like this, somehow more intimate than the occasions he let Merlin fuck him, and the black ink sinks and spreads into the tiny, almost invisible creases in his skin, mapping them out. Something intense is building between them.

"What're you writing?" Arthur asks, squirming a little as Merlin writes over his ribs and down to the soft skin of his waist, where he likes to pretend he's not ticklish. "I can't read your terrible scrawl from this angle."

Lifting Arthur's left wrist, Merlin writes down his forearm, the words following the sinew and the line of his veins, curling around into his palm, a word for each finger. "I have to memorize ten different poems to quote from," Merlin says quietly, moving over to Arthur's hip. "Figured this would help."

After a few more lines he pauses, thinking hard, before continuing over the place where Arthur's leg joins his body, smoothing a thumb over the knob of bone and smearing the ink just to hear Arthur's hitch in breathing. The other end of the pen is wet from Merlin's mouth, and he traces it over the base of Arthur's cock, making it twitch and Arthur groan. For a moment Merlin just appreciates the sight, then he shifts back up to fill all the places he missed.

When Arthur's torso is covered in crawling black tracks of poetry, Yeats and Plath and Ginsberg, over his shoulder and curving around his pectorals, written down the smooth curve of his abdominal muscles, pressed into the dips of his rib-bones, Merlin sits and considers his work a moment. Arthur brings his hand to Merlin's face, traces a thumb gently over his lips. Merlin sucks it in, nips at it lightly, swirls his tongue around just to watch Arthur's jaw go slack.

"There's still a couple to go," he says hoarsely. "Turn over." Merlin doesn't let a hint of question seep into his voice but his heart still beats triple-time when Arthur just smiles, drops his hand, and complies.

Arthur's back is like a blank canvass, and when Merlin starts in on his shoulder-blades Arthur sighs lightly, rocks his hips into the mattress. Merlin smiles, unsurprised. They've been together long enough for Merlin to know that Arthur likes to be touched— adored, worshipped, even. Despite his sarcasm, Merlin's more than happy to oblige: Arthur is painfully beautiful.

"Read one to me," Arthur says, voice slightly muffled by the pillow but still thick with need. "Read— what you're writing, aloud."

"_I learn by going where I have to go_," Merlin says, the words dripping slow off his tongue as he etches them down the long lithe line of Arthur's spine. "_This shaking keeps me steady; I should know._"

He kisses the base of Arthur's spine with lips instead of ink. It tastes salt-sweet, and Arthur curses helplessly against the pillow as Merlin pushes his thighs wider, lets his mouth roam downwards. He licks a long stripe between Arthur's cheeks, right down 'til his chin hits Arthur's balls, and then back up again. The pen falls from his hand, forgotten.

The muscles in Arthur's legs flutter under Merlin's hands as he palms up them to spread his arse, hold it open. "Christ, Merlin," Arthur says, as though from a long way away, and Merlin can feel him trying for leverage so he can get some friction on his cock. Merlin bites into the muscle in reprimand, then licks over the red imprint of his teeth in apology when Arthur yelps. For his own part, Merlin's hard in his pants, still fully-dressed and the denim achingly tight over his erection.

Licking teasing and kitten-like over Arthur's hole, the strange softness of his perineum, Merlin closes his eyes and thinks he could drown in the noises that vibrate out from Arthur's chest. It took him a long time to find out that this was the thing that split Arthur apart; that when he presses his mouth like this, open and hot and everywhere and spit drips down over Arthur's balls, Arthur will beg. "Merlin, please, Merlin, fuck, please." When he presses his tongue firmly into Arthur's ass and tastes him, stretches the ring of muscle around it and fucks him with it, holds him so open he can stretch his tongue deep inside and feel Arthur flutter around him, it drives Arthur crazy. His hands are clenching and unclenching in the sheets, mouthing a litany of profanity.

Merlin doesn't even have to touch him, just lets Arthur rock back onto his face, alternating between prostate-seeking thrusts and long laves like he can't get enough, and Arthur comes apart perfectly. Merlin pulls back before it's over; sits up: "On your back."

"I want your mouth on my dick," Arthur says when he is, drawing his legs up so he's flat-footed and exposed. "I want to come in your mouth—" He stares up at Merlin, all ink and sweat and sunlight, cock leaking on his belly. Merlin rubs down his side soothingly, tracing a thumb over _I want to watch you sleep_. Better than a chocolate bar or an episode of _Lost_ any day of the week. "Merlin, please."

Merlin licks up the underside first, then wraps his lips around the head and suckles; his mouth already feels bruised and sticky, he has no idea what it must look like stretched around Arthur's cock, but Arthur has to drag his eyes away, throw an arm over his face and groan into it. Once he brings his hand into play it's only a few smooth pumps until Arthur's thrusting frantically, trying to his the back of his throat, scraping his nails through Merlin's hair and over his ears and saying: "Soon— I'm— love—" and spilling hot into Merlin's mouth.

Merlin keeps sucking because he likes the taste, riding him through it until all of Arthur's limbs go slack and then licking over his balls and back up Arthur's softening cock. His toes curl and he groans, clenching his fists so that they tug Merlin's scalp painfully. With obvious lethargy, Arthur manhandles him into straddling his thighs again, unzips Merlin's fly so he can (finally!) wrap a hand around Merlin, who feels almost painfully hard, like he was seconds away from coming in his pants.

"I have missed you," Arthur says, voice filled with sex, "So fucking much."

"Mm," Merlin agrees, letting his head fall back between his shoulders as Arthur pulls him off dry.

"You're going to sit in that exam," Arthur adds, smearing a thumb over the head of Merlin's cock so that his breathing stutters. "And think of me. And poetry. And pass with flying colours."

Merlin's manages to look at him at that, eyes half-lidded and tingling lower lip caught harshly between his teeth. "I definitely shouldn't have let you into my flat," he pants, squeezes his eyes shut, and comes all over Arthur's chest.


End file.
